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Environmental Potential and the Postglacial Readaptation in Eastern North America

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

James E. Fitting
James E. Fitting*
Affiliation:
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan
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Abstract

In definitions of the postglacial readaptation in eastern North America, attempts have been made to apply a single standard to the entire area. Such definitions are inadequate since a number of environmental zones existed in the region during late glacial and early postglacial times. These consisted of a periglacial zone with a fairly high carrying capacity supporting a cold-climate hunting adaptation; a zone of closed boreal forest with a relatively low carrying capacity; and a region of broadleaf and southern forests with a relatively high carrying capacity for a mixed gathering-and-hunting base. In the southeast there is a gradual transition from formally defined Paleo-Indian to Archaic culture, although both groups, if separation is possible, had potentially the same subsistence base. In the northeast there is a low population density hiatus between two periods of higher population density.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 33 , Issue 4 , October 1968 , pp. 441 - 445
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for American Archaeology 1968

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